If you want to see the worst case ever of "White People Not Getting It," look up Duran Duran's cover of "911 is a Joke." I have never cringed so hard in my life.
Friday, October 4th, 2008
Manassas, Virginia
Burns took control of the scene right away. As soon as her feet hit the dirt floor of the pit, she was ordering the workers to get back and preformed a thorough examination of the half of the casket that the backhoe had exposed. The rest was still buried beneath the earth. No one did anything to stop her or force her to leave the site. It was clear she knew what she was doing.
Since Burns wasn't going to resurface any time soon, Bobby followed her down into the pit. Almost as soon as she saw him, Burns started babbling about nineteenth century caskets and how they were lucky to find one in such seemingly pristine condition. It took Bobby three attempts to break through to her and get her to focus on the case.
Burns did admit then that the casket had been found in about the same area where her team member had gotten scratched. She wasn't certain enough to say whether it was directly above it or not. It was still close enough to be plausible, though, especially when they'd already seen the ghost appear nearby.
In fact, with visual confirmation of the ghost, there was no question for any of the hunters anymore that this was a haunting. Bobby asked Burns if they would be able to open the casket and she confirmed that she could, but she had to get it back to her office first. There, she had the tools and equipment needed to open it without the casket exploding and the remains being reduced to slop. Apparently that was a thing that could happen.
However, retrieving the casket was going to take a bit. They still had to dig it up the rest of the way and Burns needed to get in contact with the Smithsonian so they could provide a truck for transport. Bobby asked how long it would take and Burns said that the earliest she could have the casket in her office would be sometime that night. That gave them some time to kill.
After Bobby explained all of this to Dean, Sam, and Skye, they decided to first go back to D.C. to get Bobby's car. Other than the general annoyance at having to drive all the way back to D.C., the ride was uneventful. Once they got back to the parking lot where they left the car, the Winchesters and Bobby started forming their plan of attack.
Dean and Sam were going to head to the coroner's office where Flores' body was being held. Even though they already had their ghost, they still needed to see for themselves how Flores had been killed. Meanwhile, Bobby and Skye would go to Flores' home to check for any residual signs of ghost activity as well as anything the ghost could be attached to. Ghosts couldn't normally travel between two locations, so there had to be something that allowed this one to. Most likely, something that Flores had taken to the construction site.
Since Skye needed to learn more about spotting the signs of ghosts, it was decided that she would go with Bobby while Sam and Dean handled the coroner's office. Surprisingly to Dean, Skye didn't disagree or try to protest. To be honest, he took her for the type who would rebel just for the hell of it, but so far she'd been living up to her promise of following instructions and doing as she was told. That was all well and good, but Dean had a feeling that this wasn't going to last…
Separating into their respective vehicles, the two groups went off to their intended destinations. Again, the ride was uneventful save for the annoyance of having to drive all the way to Manassas again. They really should have thought that through before Bobby accepted that ride.
At the coroner's office, Sam and Dean showed off their fake FBI credentials and were allowed back into the autopsy room. Flores' autopsy had already been completed, but the brothers insisted that they needed to see the body for themselves rather than just read the report. One of the staff members showed them to the refrigerated cabinet that Flores' body was being kept in and opened it up for them, before going back to wherever they were supposed to be.
In the time between the staff member leaving and the coroner walking in, Dean pulled his EMF meter out and scanned it over the body. It did spike at some points, but for the most part it gave off mixed results. He slipped the device back into his inside jacket pocket just as the coroner walked into the room.
The coroner was an older man who was more than willing to explain his findings to the FBI, not even questioning why the feds had taken an interest in the case. Everything he had to say matched up with what they had already known. Flores' cause of death had been ruled a homicide. He'd been shot in the back of the head and succumbed to a brain hemorrhage within minutes. It wasn't until Sam asked about the caliber of weapon that was used that they learned anything useful. That, the coroner seemed excited to talk about.
"We haven't released this information to the public," the man said. "But the bullet found in the victim's skull was rather unusual."
"How so?" Sam asked.
"We identified it as a nineteenth century musket ball," the coroner explained. "I already handed it off to the forensics lab for testing, but I still have the x-rays of Mr. Flores' skull that I can show you."
The two brothers confirmed they wanted to see the x-rays. While the coroner went to get the slides, Sam and Dean took the opportunity to examine the gunshot wound for themselves. Gently turning Flores' head to the side, they instantly spotted where the musket ball had entered the skull. The wound was bigger and rounder than most modern gunshot wounds, lending credence to the idea that an older weapon had been used. That was if there was a weapon used at all. If Burns found similar wounds on the body in the casket, that could indicate that their ghost was killing people in the same way he himself had been killed.
The coroner returned and placed the slides on top of the wall-mounted light box. Once illuminated, there was no mistaking the large, circular object that had implanted itself in the base of Flores' brain. Despite the corroborating evidence, Dean found himself frowning.
"Why wasn't this in the police report?" he asked. The coroner shrugged.
"They probably want to limit the suspect pool," he suggested. "Since it's such an unusual weapon in this day and age, if someone knows what kind of weapon or ammunition was used…"
"Then they'll have their murderer," Sam concluded, though both he and Dean knew that wouldn't end up being the case.
The two of them thanked the coroner for his cooperation and he told them he was happy to help the FBI. After that, they left and got back in the Impala to meet Bobby and Skye at Flores' and share what they found.
Skye fixed her ponytail to pull a few loose strands of hair out of her face as she watched Bobby continue to pick the lock on Flores' backdoor. He'd been at it for over twenty minutes and seemingly hadn't made any headway. Technically, Skye could use her powers to push up the pins and try to force the tumbler on the lock (it was something that had worked for her before) but then Bobby would know about her powers. She wasn't going to expose herself over a minor annoyance. She was smarter than that.
Instead, she leaned against the side of the house and focused on breathing deeply. She was finding it helped to control her powers, and if that wasn't the case, it at the very least made her more aware of the environment around her. She could feel the wind move the leaves of the tree on the other side of the yard. She could feel the revolution of every engine in every car that passed by. She could even feel movements that she couldn't even identify. All she could tell who was that they were coming from deep within the earth…
It could get overwhelming, but deep breaths helped her cope. So did recognizing the movements she could identify for what they were. If she was focused on those, it was easier to block out what was going on below her. She just needed to focus on the closest sounds and movements. Everything further away could be ignored.
Just focus…
Click!
Skye stood up straighter as she felt the last pin slide into place. She watched as Bobby used the pick to turn the tumbler, allowing him to push the door right open. He let out an agitated huff as he did so.
"Well, that took forever." He'd either forgotten that Skye was there or didn't expect her to respond, because he seemed surprised when she did.
"You seemed to have an easier time than I did that time I got locked out of my van," she said.
"Yeah?" Bobby said. "How long did that take you?"
"After about six hours I gave up and threw a rock through the driver's side window." Bobby briefly raised his eyebrows.
"Glad I didn't ask you to do this, then," he remarked. Skye laughed but couldn't help but feel a little guilty.
Walking into Flores' home, Skye felt relief as freshly cooled air hit her skin. It wasn't extremely hot outside, but summer was certainly having a hard time saying goodbye. She could already feel the line of sweat forming above her brow starting to ease. It was nice, but one look at Bobby's face told her that something was amiss.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"It's way too cold in here," he said. Skye frowned.
"Is that a sign of something?" Bobby nodded.
"Temperature tends to drop when a spirit or ghost activity is going on nearby," he said. "Didn't you notice that the last time with the witnesses?"
"I was a little more focused on not dying…"
Bobby nodded in understanding, but his tone was firm and no-nonsense when he said "pay attention to your surroundings any time you go up against the supernatural. These things, they often give subtle signs as to their true nature. Learning to recognize them could be the difference between life and death."
Skye accepted that piece of advice readily, even though on another level it was something she was already aware of. She followed Bobby out into the living room, but stopped short when she saw the state it was in.
"Oh, Jesus!" she said spotting the blood stain that covered most of the hardwood floor. Bobby raised an eyebrow at her.
"You squeamish?" he asked.
"Not normally." She thought back to the time she spent working as a janitor at McDonald's. She had cleaned up some of the worst messes humanity had to offer and hadn't balked at them. Despite that, something still got to her about the blood. "Just wasn't expecting to see that. Aren't there supposed to be people who come and clean up the place after the police are done with it?"
"Sometimes the cops want to preserve the scene," Bobby explained. "Other times there's no rush to get everything back to normal, especially if the person lived alone or had no other family to speak of."
Skye understood, though she couldn't help but feel a little bad for Flores. She tried to shake it off as best she could.
"So, temperature drops are a sign of ghosts," she said, turning to look around the opposite side of the room from where Bobby was standing. "What are some of the others?"
"Well, electrical failures are one," Bobby said. "Lights flickering, electronics turning on or off on their own."
"Like what Burns described happening at the construction site," Skye concluded.
"Yup," Bobby confirmed. "So keep your eyes peeled for that stuff or anything else that just doesn't feel right to you."
Skye nodded and continued to inspect the room. It was sparsely decorated and gave off a cold vibe that had nothing to do with the temperature. On a side table, she found a picture frame that had been violently smashed face-down. She picked it up and looked through the cracks in the glass to see a bald man smiling with his arm around a woman with brunette hair and blue eyes.
She figured this must be Flores and his ex-wife. Skye frowned at the woman's image. If she felt bad for Flores before, she felt even worse for his ex. She was on the hook for a crime she didn't commit and unfortunately – unless Virginia state law suddenly recognized the existence of ghosts – there was nothing they could do to exonerate her.
Maybe there's something I can hack to get her charges reduced…? Skye shrugged as she set the picture down, this time face-up. That would be something to investigate later.
Glancing up, Skye thought she saw something strange. Looking at the wall more intently, her eyes locked on the digital display of the electric thermostat. It took a second for what was wrong to click, but this was something that just didn't feel right to her.
"Uh, Bobby," she said. "Something's weird with the thermostat. Would that count as an electrical failure?"
"Let me see," Bobby said as he crossed the room to stand next to Skye. "What's the problem?"
"The thermostat's reading ninety-one degrees," she explained. "That's obviously wrong."
Bobby stepped closer to the thermostat and narrowed his eyes at the display. For a second, Skye worried that she read it wrong, even though she usually didn't have trouble with numbers. That fear was put to rest when Bobby reached up and pressed the numbers six and five on the keypad. Each number showed up on the display at the same time the device let out a soft beep. He hit the enter key and for a second, the number on the display stayed at sixty-five.
Then – without warning – the device let out a series of rapid-fire beeps and the number changed back to ninety-one. Bobby frowned.
"Well, that's weird," he remarked.
"Could that be a ghost?" Before Skye could get an answer, though, the sound of the back door opening startled Skye into taking a step back and putting her hands in the air. Instead of the police walking in, though, it turned out to be Sam and Dean, who both gave her looks of disbelief as they saw what she was doing.
Dropping her hands to her chest, Skye sucked in a deep breath.
"Jesus," she found herself huffing again.
"What, did you think we were the cops?" Skye looked up, narrowing her eyes at Dean.
"Well, given that we're at a crime scene, yeah!" Dean shook his head as he walked over to and began to inspect the bloodstain on the floor. "What do you want me to do, then? Get shot?"
"No." Skye turned back to look at Bobby. "Just don't put your hands up. That's just admitting to the cops that you're guilty."
"I'm trying to show them that I'm unarmed," Skye argued. "I don't want to give them a reason to kill me."
"Ain't gonna happen if you just act the part." Skye must have signaled in some way that she was confused, because Sam jumped in to elaborate.
"Look, the cops won't have any reason to harm you if they think you're one of them," he explained. "You're supposed to be an FBI agent investigating a crime scene. You're allowed to be here and aren't breaking any laws. Act like you believe that, and the cops will believe it, too." Skye frowned.
"And if they don't?" she questioned.
"Run like hell," Dean viced from where he was bent over the stain. With the quick glance she took, Skye saw that he was holding a hand-held device over it. Turning back to see if there was any different advice that could be offered, she watched as Sam just shrugged.
"Sometimes that's all you can do," was all Bobby had to add to the matter. Skye just hoped it wouldn't come to that.
After that, Sam changed the subject to what he and Dean found out at the coroner's office. Skye knew she should probably pay attention, but instead she found herself stepping out of the way and looking around the room. She tried to look for anything out of the ordinary but found nothing. At least, nothing she could see.
When she heard the whisper, her blood ran cold. Bobby didn't mention bodiless whispers among the standard signs of ghost activity, but Skye didn't want to put it past them. She was about to say something when a thought occurred to her.
Reaching into her back pocket, Skye pulled out her cellphone. When she saw the lit-up screen, she reacted quickly and brought the phone back up to her ear.
"Hello?" she said, hoping that no one would respond back. She wasn't that lucky.
"Hello, ma'am, can you hear me?" Skye could feel the embarrassment beginning to flush her face.
"Yes, I can hear you just fine," she responded. "Uh, might I ask who I'm speaking to?"
"Manassas Police, Fire, and EMS," the person on the other end of the line said. "Are you having an emergency?"
That's when Skye went from embarrassed to absolutely mortified.
Right when we just got done discussing what to do when confronted by the police.
"No, we're fine here," Skye said. "I must have sat on the phone and dialed by accident."
"Is there anyone in the room with you?"
Oh, God!
"Yes, but I'm not being forced to talk," Skye assured. "I'm fine. There's no emergency." Everyone's eyes landed on her with that last word. She wanted to shrink in on herself but held the feeling back as best as she could for fear she might accidentally shake something.
"Okay," the operator said. "I believe you, ma'am. Just be careful with your cellphone. This line needs to be clear for emergencies."
"Right. I'm sorry." Without further ado, Skye hung up the phone and immediately addressed the entire room. "That was an accident."
"Did you just call 911?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, and it was an accident," Skye insisted. "I don't even know how that happened."
"I do." Already expecting an accusation from Dean, Skye rolled her eyes.
"I didn't do it on purpose," she asserted as she turned to face him. However, she was surprised to see that he wasn't glaring at her. Instead, she saw that he had opened up the entertainment center and was pointing to the display on the cable box, which showed three very familiar numbers in bright green.
"911," he read off. "Timer in the kitchen's set to that, too."
"The thermostat's stuck on ninety-one degrees," Bobby offered. "It uses one of those newer digital keypads."
"Check it for EMF?" Dean asked.
"I was about to when you walked in," Bobby said. "I'll get to it now." Dean nodded.
"Sam, get me the remote," he instructed. "Skye, your phone."
Since she already had the device in-hand, Skye walked over and handed it to Dean.
"You think a ghost was screwing with my phone?" she asked.
"Wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen," Dean answered with a dismissive shrug.
"It's sad that I already completely believe you on that."
Dean waved the handheld device he'd been using before over the phone, and it was only then that Skye realized that it was an EMF meter. It looked starkly different from the one Bobby had shown her; more stripped-down and cobbled together. Skye wanted to ask about it, but before she could, the meter started lighting up bright red and whirring loudly.
"Oh yeah," Dean said. "This thing is going crazy. Looks like you're off the hook."
"Yippee," Skye sarcastically remarked, though honestly she felt a bit of relief at the confirmation. She happily snatched her phone back from Dean and shoved it in her back pocket.
At the same time, Sam handed the remote for the TV over to Dean. He held the EMF meter over it but didn't get as flashy a response as he did from Skye's phone.
"It's weak, but it's still something," Dean remarked as he looked up. "You got anything Bobby?"
"Strong results from the thermostat," he reported. "Makes sense since the spirit was messing with it before you guys walked in."
"What about the remote?" Sam asked?
"It probably hasn't been touched since the attack," Bobby explained. "Hence the weaker readings."
Again, Skye heard it, the sound of soft whispering. Frustrated, she ripped her phone out of her pocket again and brought it back to her ear.
"Hello?" she said. However she received no answer. Confused, she pulled the phone away from her ear and looked down at the display. Seeing that it wasn't lit up, she frowned. "It's not me this time."
Right away the three men all started reaching for their phones, checking the displays for any signs of a call in-progress. Sam ended up being the lucky winner.
"Shit," he said before brining the phone to his ear. "Hello, who is this?" A pause. "I'm sorry, this is a mistake. There's no emergency here." Another pause. "No, I understand. Yup. Okay, bye."
Sam hung up the phone and glared at Dean, who'd been chuckling to himself the entire time. That didn't last long, though, because Dean was swiftly taken off guard by the display screen of his own phone lighting up as it dialed on its own. Cursing harshly, he hit the end call button as hard and as fast as he could. Sam didn't even try to hide his smirk.
Skye's screen lit up again as it tried to make another call to 911, and shortly after Bobby's phone did the same. At that point, it was clear that the ghost activity wasn't going to stop.
"What should we do?" Skye asked.
"Exactly what we said earlier," Bobby said. "Run like hell." Skye was about to question this, but Sam beat her to the punch.
"The police can track calls made to 911," he explained. "If they realize they keep getting calls from this address, they're gonna have to send a squad car over here." Skye nodded and followed Sam and Bobby back through the kitchen and out the door. Dean pulled up the rear and locked the door shut behind him.
"Will leaving make the ghost knock it off?" Skye asked.
"Maybe, maybe not," Bobby said. "In any case, it's best we get out of here ASAP."
Bobby then got into his own car and started it up. Without realizing it, Skye had climbed into the back seat of the Impala, although she left her bag and other belongings in Bobby's car. It didn't really matter, though. They were all going to the same place anyway. Besides, Sam and Dean didn't seem to be bothered by her being there. In fact, they didn't even acknowledge her as they took their places in the front seats and Dean started to pull the car back out into the street.
On their way out of the neighborhood, they passed two police cars that didn't have their lights on, but were in an obvious hurry to get somewhere. Likely, they thought they were going into a hostage or domestic abuse situation and didn't want to startle the suspect into doing something irrational. Skye smirked for a moment and tried to ignore the part of her brain that was telling her she should be concerned about the cops running into the ghost.
We're fine, so the cops should be fine, too, right?
Yeah, right. She already knew that kind of reasoning rarely worked out with the supernatural. The most she could really hope for was that they just wouldn't enter the house. Maybe then the ghost would leave them alone.
Washington D.C.
Driving away from the scene seemed to do the trick. Since leaving the house, none of their phones had acted up and decided to call 911 on their own. That was good, because the last thing they needed was to get into a police chase because a ghost decided to call the cops.
Around ten-thirty at night was when they got the call from Burns. She had to push her team into overtime, but they had gotten the remains back to her office in record time. The Winchesters, Bobby, and Skye then made their way back to D.C., ready to dispel the spirit once and for all.
By the time they got there, Burns had already gotten the cover off the casket, exposing the corpse to air for the first time in over a century. Although the body was in what Burns called "pristine condition," the face was far too decomposed to make a positive identification. The uniform the man was wearing looked the same as the one they'd seen on the ghost, so it seemed pretty likely to them that this was their guy.
"So, was this a good guy, or was he one of the racist assholes?" Skye asked as she watched Dean and Bobby pour salt and gasoline onto the corpse.
"He's dressed in a Union Army Uniform," Burns confirmed.
"Okay, so we can be sad about this," Skye said.
"You know, not everyone in the Union Army was an abolitionist…" Sam started to say, but Skye disregarded him in favor of asking another question.
"What are you doing?" She was looking to Burns, who was gently tilting the corpse's head to the side.
"Just have a hunch," was all she offered in cryptic explanation. Dean was going to snap at her to get out of the way when she pulled a pair of long tweezers out of her lab coat pocket. Slowly, she inserted the tool into a round hole in the back of the corpse's head. How she could have possibly known that was there, Dean wasn't sure. After a few moments of digging, Burns slowly pulled the tweezers out. Pinched between the two prongs was a round object about the size of a quarter.
"What's that?" Skye asked.
"I believe that this is a musket ball," Burns said as she turned the tweezers in her hand, studying the object closely.
"Just like how Flores was killed," Bobby concluded. Burns hummed in agreement. "I guess that puts any doubts to rest."
"Guess it does." Burns tossed both the tweezers and the musket ball into the casket. Dean and Bobby made sure to cover that in salt and gas, too.
"Wait, so I don't get this," Skye said with a furrowed brow. "This guy was shot in the back of the head during the Civil War, so he wakes up as a ghost a hundred-fifty years later and starts shooting people in the back of the head. How does that make sense?"
"Vengeful spirits usually tend to kill people in a similar manner to how they themselves were killed," Sam explained. "Someone that was thrown off a cliff would start lobbing people off that same cliff. A drowning victim would start drowning people…"
"Shooting victim shoots people," Skye concluded. "How does that make the bullet real, though?" Dean scoffed.
"You expect us to know everything?" he questioned.
"Yes, Professor Dean." He glared at her sarcasm, but Skye seemed unaffected. Instead, she stood on her tip-toes to lean over the lip of the casket. "Wonder how his fingers got messed up, though…"
"War is brutal," Burns dismissed.
"You should probably get back from there," Bobby advised as he finished pouring the last of the gasoline over the body. "Gonna be lighting 'em up in a second."
"Okay," she said as she started to back off. "Just let me…"
Skye stopped moving completely. Something seemed to catch her interest, as her eyes began to narrow as if homing in on a target. With the speed of a striking viper, Skye reached into the casket and pulled something out from between the side of it and the body. She held the object up to her face and it quickly became apparent that it was a cellphone.
"Uh, what is this doing in there?" she said, catching Burns, Bobby, and Sam's attention. The doctor frowned in puzzlement.
"What is that?" she asked.
"A cellphone," Skye said bluntly. "And I probably don't know as much about the Civil War as I should, but I'm sure they didn't have anything like this yet."
"You found that in the casket?" Sam questioned.
"Uh-huh," Skye confirmed. "Between the body and the side."
"Is it yours?" Although Dean had been watching her the entire time, he admittedly hadn't been paying attention to whether she had the device in her hand or if she dropped it. Skye shook her head.
"No. It's right here." She reached into her back pocket and retrieved a phone that appeared to be the same model as the one she found. "Is it any of yours?" A chorus of "no" followed and just to be safe, everyone checked their pockets. No one was missing a cellphone. The room was silent as the meaning of that sunk in.
"Shit," Bobby remarked.
"Uh," Sam said, looking at Dr. Burns. "Can you tell how long he's been dead?"
Burns leaned over the casket, trying to get a closer look. After a tense few moments, she clicked her tongue and pulled back.
"Honestly, I can't tell," she said. "That casket was hermetically sealed. With not enough air coming in, the decomposition process is slowed, preserving the body. He could have been killed two months ago or two-hundred years ago. I have no way of knowing."
"Well, that's just great," Bobby said.
"What should we do?" Skye asked.
"What we were going to do anyway," Dean said. "Light 'em up."
Finally, the moment Dean had been waiting for arrived. Skye's nostrils flared and dark, furious eyes settled on him. She took a step forward, holding herself up strong.
"You can't do that," she insisted. Dean was unphased.
"No, we have to do this," he stressed.
"That man could've been murdered," Skye said.
"He probably was," Dean agreed.
"Recently!" Skye amended.
"That doesn't change anything."
"That changes everything!" Skye argued. "We should tell someone! People could be looking for him!"
"So what? You want to call the cops?"
"What else are we supposed to do?" Skye balked. "If he died recently, then that means his killer might be out there still and they could do it again! Never mind that he might have a family!"
"So we burn him, then we call the cops," Sam managed to cut in, looking sharply between Dean and Skye. "That way, the ghost won't come back, and the police can try to figure out what happened. Everybody wins. So will you both just back off each other?"
To Dean's surprise, Skye stepped away first. He thought she would've stood her ground, if for no other reason than it being a big "screw you" to him, but she didn't. Instead, her eyes went down to her right fist, which was clenched so hard, it was actually shaking.
Slowly, she let go of the fist. She tried to take deep, calming breaths, but a few times her breathing hitched like she'd just received a shock. When she was calm enough, she finally opened her eyes and looked right at the brothers.
"Okay," she said. "That'll work." She didn't offer anything beyond that. Dean took a step forward and held out his hand.
"Hand over the phone." Skye frowned.
"Why?" she asked.
"It belonged to the dead guy," he explained. "The spirit could still be attached to it. We've got to burn it, too, to make sure it doesn't come back."
Skye opened her mouth to protest, but Bobby stopped her words dead in their tracks.
"That's not a request, and it's not something we can compromise on," he said. "We're not taking risks on this. Put the phone back so we can make sure this is over, for everyone."
With that, Skye had no choice but to relent. She handed one of the two phones in her left hand over to Dean and he tossed it back into the casket. Without any ceremony, Bobby lit three matches at once and used them to set the body ablaze. A fire alarm went off in the distance, but Burns assured them she would take care of it.
Shortly after that, the four of them walked back out to their respective cars. Halfway there, Dean grabbed Sam by the shoulder, pulling him back.
"Why'd you cut in like that back there?" Dean asked. "What, were you afraid I was gonna hit her or something?" It was something that Dean himself had been afraid of, given that he'd done far worse than hitting in recent months. Surprisingly, though, Sam shook his head.
"I mean, yeah, I thought you were going to get physical, but I thought she was going to throw the first punch." Dean blinked.
"Seriously?" Sam nodded.
"Didn't you see the way her fist was shaking?" he asked. "She was either going to hit you, or literally explode."
"And you didn't think I could handle it myself?" Dean questioned. "I mean, even if she did hit me, she's five-foot-five and weighs less than a feather. I could take her down without hurting her."
Too much. Dean hated that his brain needed to add that caveat.
"Well, I didn't want you to have to," Sam said in response. Dean frowned.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Instead of answering, Sam quickened his pace and crossed the lot to the Impala in record time. Dean rolled his eyes.
Fine. Be like that, prick.
Thank you to READING READER for the comment and the guest who left kudos on AO3! It really means a lot!
Unlike what I portrayed in this chapter if you call 911 from a cell phone, there's a one in five chance that the emergency dispatch center isn't going to be able to pinpoint your exact location. This is because most local emergency dispatch centers aren't equipped with the same phone-tracking technology that big corporations like Facebook, Uber, and even freaking Domino's Pizza have. So, as a PSA, if you're going to try to call 911 on a cell phone, be very exact and precise when relaying your location.
So, it looks like Dean and Skye aren't getting along. It's going to take them a bit to warm up to each other. Hopefully, Skye will be able to keep her temper (and her powers) under control until then…
Remember kids, get up, get, get, get down! 911 is a joke in your town!
Originally published to FFN on 11/18/22.
